Page:North Dakota Reports (vol. 48).pdf/799

 counted for the defendant which were cast by persons who were not citizens of the United States, and that 12 votes were counted for the defendant which had been cast by women who were illegally assisted by a judge of the election. Subtracting the 14 votes thus found to have been illegally cast and counted for the defendant, the result was adjudged to be 518 for the contestant plaintiff and 515 for the contestee defendant.

In so far as the assignments of error upon this appeal involve the questions presented and decided in the Drinkwater-Nelson contest, that opinion is adopted as applicable hereto, and in so far as assignments are presented that are not controlled by the decision in that case they will be separately considered. The votes excluded and subtracted from Dewing on the grounds of alienage are those of Mary Skalicky and Muriel Byknonen. These were not legal votes, and they must be disposed of as in the Drinkwater-Nelson contest. This case turns upon the propriety of excluding a number of votes in Colville precinct on the ground of the failure to observe the secrecy of the ballot through assistance rendered to voters by one election judge, where no disability was declared or shown.

As to the circumstances in which assistance was rendered, Bennie Breeding, a clerk at the election, testified that on one occasion both judges of election went into the booth with a woman, and that one of the judges, Ole Sletvig, went into the booth with approximately half of the women that voted in the precinct that day; that he did not think that the women had first declared that they could not read nor mark their ballots, except the old lady who was assisted by both judges; that he did not hear any of them declare that they were unable to mark their ballots; that the provisions ‘of the law with reference to assistance to voters were read in the morning on the opening of the polls; and that the ladies who had assistance asked Mr. Sletvig to go to the booth with them. Sam O. Enget, a judge in the same precinct, testified that there was just one lady who voted with the assistance of both judges and that she had stated to the board that she could not read; that none of the other ladies declared or told the judges that they could not read, or that they were physically unable to mark their ballots; that Sletvig, the other judge, assisted about half of the women voters; that these women asked Sletvig to go into the booth with them that he (Enget) had remarked during the morning that this should not be done; that Sletvig continued 10 go to the booth with the ladies that called for him; that there was no